“There are a lot of shitty clubs,” he wrote in a guest blog post for NME. “Clubs are closing down worldwide, and part of it is because of the restrictions being placed on them. In Switzerland the volume limit in clubs is 99dB, which, if you were to turn the music down and just have people talking, that’s already maybe 96dB, 97dB. There’s some insane sound levels going on in Europe. Obviously the best ones will find a way around it, but the sound police are gradually taking fun away from kids.”

Dan Dennison/NME

“I have noticed one thing in the past 15 years that we’ve been coming to the UK, which is that in the beginning the sound was super important,” he continued.

“It feels like that’s something that’s been gradually lost in the UK. A lot of clubs would open and, to me, it would be less about the experience of hearing music. It felt like they were cutting corners. A lot of small clubs are really cool, but it’s not necessarily about being drenched in music.”

“That whole demigod DJ thing has gone absolutely nuts, too, but I don’t see it dying any time in the next year or so. People are loving it, they can’t get enough of it and it’s just weird. It’s really odd.”

Launched in 2013, Despacio features an 11-foot custom-built disco soundsystem with the trio exclusively playing vinyl.

“Despacio is not about the DJ, it’s about the party,” Dewaele added. “There’s just the three of us playing from the very beginning ’til the very end, which is usually between seven and eight hours.”

“There’s seven stacks with the amps built into them – it’s quite beautiful – and they’re ‘in the round’, so people are engulfed by it. We’re hidden, so it’s not like people are looking at us. The whole thing is just this Stonehenge of audio.”

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